


sonata quasi una fantasia luna

by girodelles_waifu



Series: guess-the-author fills [13]
Category: Takarazuka Revue Musicals, The Microcosmic War of Dejima - Takarazuka Revue
Genre: F/M, M/M, no historical siebold incidents were harmed in the making of this fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-24
Updated: 2020-06-24
Packaged: 2021-03-04 04:29:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,924
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24897718
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/girodelles_waifu/pseuds/girodelles_waifu
Summary: In the aftermath of the incident at Dejima, Siebold struggles with guilt and Kageyasu refuses to rest.
Relationships: Siebold/Helene (The Microcosmic War of Dejima), Siebold/Kageyasu (The Microcosmic War of Dejima)
Series: guess-the-author fills [13]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1745692
Comments: 4
Kudos: 5
Collections: Guess the Author: Tsukigumi round





	sonata quasi una fantasia luna

**1\. adagio sostenuto**

Kageyasu was dead.

Had been dead five years by the time Siebold heard the news from a trading ship returning from Dejima. They didn't even know his name—all they could tell him was that a court astronomer had been executed for letting a foreigner run off with a map of Japan. Even that information was vague. Another rumor said he had been imprisoned and quickly died of illness.

That he was dead was the only certain thing.

Siebold slammed the pile of books and notes down in the pool of moonlight spilling across his desk and kicked the chair over.

Some good those fairy tales of moon magic did Kageyasu in the end.

The worst of it all was Siebold didn't even have the bloody map! He should never have let himself be persuaded into the spy business in the first place. A man died for the whole ridiculous scheme, and he hadn't even committed the blunder they killed him for.

Perhaps he shouldn't feel so affected by it. They'd been on opposite sides, after all. Siebold had even tried to shoot Kageyasu himself, when everything started falling apart.

But even in their brief interactions before hostilities escalated, Siebold had been able to sense the spark of a fellow scientist. Kageyasu was a very interesting man. Academically and...well. Physically. And Siebold had always liked...interesting people.

He'd known the Shogun’s government would be angry, obviously. But that they'd kill someone whose only crime was being stolen from? He hadn't imagined that.

It almost felt worse knowing that he hadn't actually done what Kageyasu had been executed for. It had just been an awful mistake, and Siebold was lucky enough to have been out of the way by the time heads started rolling.

"Are you alright? I heard something fall..."

Siebold hooked a foot around a leg of the broken chair and pulled it out of view behind the desk as Helene peeked through the door. "I'm fine. A bit late for supper, isn't it?"

"Supper? Did you forget the party?"

Siebold cursed mentally. He was in no mood for anything other than sorting his notes and continuing to blame himself for how badly the mess in Dejima went wrong, but he knew he couldn't afford to pass up an opportunity for networking. He badly needed funding for botanical studies.

So there was nothing else to do but get dressed, and go to the party with Helene, and try not to think too hard about how much he was profiting off of Kageyasu’s death.

Kageyasu could so easily have killed Helene, or rather, tricked Siebold into killing her himself. A more rational or coldblooded man certainly would have realized it was the best decision, under the circumstances. Siebold felt grateful that he wasn’t that kind of man, but at the same time even more guilty—Kageyasu likely hadn’t even realized he was in danger before it was too late to run.

Siebold’s mood only grew worse at the party. A small chamber orchestra was playing Beethoven, because apparently he wasn’t ever going to be allowed to forget what he had done.

Still, there were dignitaries to impress and funding to be won, so he drifted through the gathering with Helene on his arm and did his best to make small talk. It was a half hour before he started actually listening to the conversations he was participating in.

“...sure you’d find the Russian gentleman very interesting,” the woman he was talking to (which dean was she the wife of again?) said.

“Beg pardon?”

“He’s just come here from Moscow for his research, he said,” she went on unhelpfully, without explaining anything she said previously at all. “A medical sort, I think. But you’re always interested in foreigners, aren’t you?” Helene giggled a little, and Siebold winced. “I was talking to him not ten minutes ago...there he is, over there.”

Siebold turned, and for a moment he was in Dejima again, staring as Kageyasu made his entrance into the ball, just before everything started to implode.

Then he blinked, and the phantom image was gone. Of course it was. No grey-haired stranger was going to appear to save him from his guilt.

The magic had all been fake, after all.

**2\. allegretto**

Helene tried a few times to start conversation during the carriage ride home, but gave up when Siebold only mumbled vague responses, staring out the window at the full moon. He would have to explain it to her later: she didn’t deserve for him to take it out on her.

It had all sounded so simple when it was first proposed to him. So harmless. A bit of acting—some costumes (the costumes had been _very_ tempting)—a show of Western technology to confound the locals. A little espionage in return for all the botanical research he could get done while he was there. What could go wrong?

By the time he was a few weeks in, he had practically forgotten that there might actually be any danger involved, and was just having fun with the role. When he wasn’t entirely distracted by Helene’s maid costume, of course. It was a very good maid costume, and she enjoyed the playacting as much as he did. It all seemed like such a grand game, at first. 

But then Taki and her stories of the moon plant had turned up. And then Kageyasu with the map.

Both so very...interesting.

Both with such valuable information, not only for his own scientific aims but for the Western powers as a whole.

Honestly, it was remarkable that more people hadn’t died considering the way the scheme spiraled along with his overstretched ambitions, but even one death felt far too heavy on his conscience.

Something glittered in his study window as he stepped out of the carriage onto the steps, but it was gone when he looked up—just another lying reflection of the moon.

“Hadn’t you better come to bed?” Helene said as he passed the door of the bedroom and headed further down the corridor to the study. “It’s past midnight.”

“I...later, I have to...go through some notes,” Siebold replied, knowing it sounded like the false excuse it was.

Five years of guilt was a lot to come at once—he just wanted to be let alone with it for a while. Was that so much to ask?

Helene shrugged, running to catch him and kiss his cheek lightly. “Suit yourself,” she said with a wink. “I guess I’ll just lie there in your favorite nightgown...all night…”

He grabbed her hand to kiss it as she turned away. “What would I do without you.”

“Die, most likely. Many times. And be very bad at piano playing.”

He had to laugh at that, and she slipped inside the bedroom with a last giggle and bounce of her rosy curls. Siebold felt lighter, just a little, as he entered the study and shut the door behind him.

He started a little as he saw movement, then sighed in relief when he realized it was just a curtain fluttering gently in the moonlight—he must have left the window open in his hurry to prepare for the party that evening. He fumbled with the lamp on the desk, then froze as his eyes became accustomed to the dim light and revealed a form standing in the shadow of a bookcase next to him.

Twisting free as the intruder's hand started to close around his wrist, Siebold dodged around the desk, but stumbled over one of the legs of the broken chair. The intruder vaulted over the top of the desk, an avalanche of papers following, and grabbed Siebold by the arm, pushing him back towards the bookcases lining the wall and starting to put his other hand over his mouth.

Siebold bit him hard through the leather glove and dove for the drawers of the desk. He’d kept a pistol there ever since Dejima—he’d never expected to actually need it, but Helene had insisted.

He managed to grab the handle of the drawer, but before he could open it the intruder seized his wrist and pulled him away, spinning him around and gripping his other wrist as well as he tried to push him off. Siebold struggled as the intruder started to push him back over the desk, but the other man was taller and outweighed him, and in the awkward position he was in he couldn’t get traction against the papers littering the floor.

“Let me—Hele—!” He started to shout towards the bedroom, but before he could get the words out he found himself being kissed firmly.

Siebold sifted through what information he could gain from the contact: his assailant was male, decently experienced at what he was doing (more than decently, to be honest—Siebold was being more critical than he otherwise might due to the circumstances), and did not seem to be someone he had gone this far with before, although there was something familiar he couldn’t quite place about the odd floral scent coming off his hair.

When the intruder forced the kiss on him Siebold had stopped struggling in surprise, and the hold on his wrists now slowly loosened. Siebold kicked enough papers out of the way that he could get his feet steady on the floor and waited for a chance.

The intruder fell back with a startled cry as Siebold shoved him off, one hand catching the loose curtain as he flailed for balance.

Siebold gasped as moonlight streamed into the study and illuminated silver hair.

“You!?”

**3\. presto agitato**

“Er, yes.” Kageyasu (it couldn’t _possibly_ be Kageyasu) picked himself up slowly, straightening his dark wool coat. “Sorry about that,” he added in competent Dutch. “I didn’t think you would be back yet.”

“But you’re _dead!_ ” Siebold leaned against the desk to keep his balance as he stared.

“Ah. That, yes. I didn’t know you’d heard about that.”

Siebold opened his mouth to speak, paused, put a hand to his lips (he hadn’t _felt_ dead), then tried again. “I...let me rephrase. You’re _dead!_ ” He was starting to feel slightly mad, after what had happened at the ball earlier that evening. “I _killed_ you.”

The ghost of Kageyasu began to look a little embarrassed, and stubbornly refused to vanish. “I wouldn’t go that far.”

“Can we please address the issue of you being dead.”

“I mean, I was dead, yes.” Kageyasu smoothed his bangs out of his eyes, then pulled out a hairpin and shook his head to let his ponytail tumble down over his shoulder.

Siebold stared, transfixed. In the moonlight his hair held almost a supernatural glow—but the magic had all been fake. “That doesn’t explain…” He gestured vaguely towards Kageyasu, taking a small step back in the narrow space between the desk and the row of bookcases when he almost touched his chest.

“I woke up before I was cremated.”

“You were _cremated!?_ ”

“No, just almost. I don’t know what would happen if someone went through with it.”

This was altogether too much. If this was a vision of Kageyasu sent to torment him, the least it could do was to be clear about what was going on. 

Siebold took a deep breath, then grabbed blindly behind him for the desk drawer, pulling out the pistol and pointing it shakily at where Kageyasu’s heart would have been. “Look, I’m sorry I got you killed, alright? I’m sorry I tried to shoot you! I’m sorry! I never wanted...I’m sorry, so j-just leave me alone—please—please go away—” 

He didn’t even try to pull the trigger as Kageyasu stepped forward and pushed the barrel of the gun aside. Kageyasu was pressed up against him now, but he couldn’t move back any further with the desk behind him, so he stood there and stared up into Kageyasu’s eyes, trying to remember if they had been that silver-green color before.

“I’m not dead,” Kageyasu said slowly, his slight accent making the way he clearly enunciated each word seem altogether sensual. 

It felt a bit rude to find a dead man’s voice so attractive. Especially if he had been responsible for it. “...Are you sure?” Siebold blurted out.

Kageyasu blinked, then shrugged and slowly stripped off his leather gloves, shoving them in his coat pocket before holding out one bare wrist. “Unless you’d like _other_ proof?”

“This is fine, thank you,” Siebold replied weakly, setting the pistol back in its drawer and closing it before reaching out to take Kageyasu’s wrist.

Without the gloves, he could tell that Kageyasu’s skin was as warm as any living man’s, and his pulse beat strong and steady. As Kageyasu’s eyebrows started to go up, Siebold realized just how long he had been holding his wrist and snatched his hand back quickly. “So. You’re not dead.”

“No.”

“How?”

“The moon plant made me immortal. Don’t you remember?”

Siebold suddenly realized where he remembered that strange floral scent from. Taki had smelled the same way. It had always frustrated him that he couldn’t identify it, and she would always merely laugh off his requests to give him some of her perfume to analyze.

“But...but that was fake—you tricked me into poisoning Helene—none of it was real!” Kageyasu’s reappearance after being shot had been a ruse...hadn’t it? Siebold’s memories of the last stages of the collapse of his plan were blurry.

“It was—ah!”

Kageyasu put a hand to his temple, his face creasing in pain as he staggered. Before thinking about what he was doing, Siebold put an arm around his waist, easing him down so he was sitting against the desk drawers. Kageyasu rested his face in his hands, breathing shakily.

“What’s wrong?” Siebold asked, turning the desk lamp on and crouching next to Kageyasu.

“Give me...a minute…”

“Is everything alright?” Siebold jumped as he heard Helene knock and call through the door. 

“Fine!” Siebold shouted back. “A pile of books fell over, that’s all.”

Whatever was happening, Kageyasu didn’t seem like a threat at the moment, and Helene would find his presence very unwelcome if she realized he was there. Considering Kageyasu could have killed her (even if he hadn’t, and it had been in self-defense), Siebold couldn’t blame her, but if she started waving a sword around Siebold would never get his explanation.

“I’ve told you, I’m not digging you out if you topple one of your bookshelves over on yourself,” Helene laughed. “I’m going back to bed.”

“I’ll bear that in mind…” Siebold said before turning back to Kageyasu. “Are you alright?” 

Kageyasu’s breathing seemed to have steadied now, but the pained expression was still there, and he winced as Siebold started to move the lamp closer. “Got shot in a bar fight three years ago. In Kazan.” 

Siebold grabbed his arm to help him up as he started to rise. Even in this low light he could tell that Kageyasu’s eyes were dilated unevenly, making one seem darker than the other. 

“Shot? Thought you were immortal,” Siebold said.

“Turns out, if the bullet goes in, and doesn’t come out, when you wake up it still hurts like…” Kageyasu lapsed into Japanese for a few phrases, but the import was clear.

Once he was sure Kageyasu wasn’t about to collapse again, Siebold searched the bookshelves, stretching to get a decanter full of brandy down from a high shelf. Kageyasu took it with a nod as he returned to the desk.

“So,” Siebold began, “You’re not dead. But what are you doing here? And why were you in...in Russia. That _was_ you, at the party, wasn’t it?”

Kageyasu hummed assent as he took a sip of the brandy. “I met one of the medical instructors at a conference in Berlin, and he gave me an invitation when I came to Leiden. I heard your whole department was invited, so I waited to see if you would show up before coming back here...I thought you’d be gone longer.”

“But if you’re not here because of what I...what I thought I did to you, then what do you want?”

Sighing, Kageyasu set the decanter down. “I need your help.”

Siebold blinked. “Help with what? You’re immortal. That puts you a bit ahead of me, I think.”

“Yes, but there’s a problem. I’m not just immortal.” He pinched the bridge of his nose. “I’m getting younger—and I only have so much more time to solve that before it becomes...more than a mathematical issue. So. I need your notes on the moon plant. Specimens, if you have them—I wasn’t able to get anything out of jail with me, what with being dead.”

Siebold pondered this for a moment, folding his arms. This whole situation certainly posed many interesting opportunities. Academically, of course. “And why should I help you?” he said finally.

“Well,” Kageyasu tilted his head to one side with a smile. “I could exploit the obvious immense guilt complex you have after the way your Dejima scheme ended.”

“Ah.” Siebold kicked at one of the papers on the floor. “That’s fair.”

“Or...I could point out what an interesting opportunity this would be for you.”

“...Interesting,” Siebold repeated, looking up at him.

“Yes. Scientifically.”

“Scientifically.”

“Of course.” Kageyasu leaned in with a teasing smile, speaking in a low murmur. “Whatever did you _think_ I meant?”

Siebold grabbed his cravat and pulled him down to demonstrate.


End file.
